In just a matter of weeks in the autumn of 1886, farm fields in northern Fairfield Township were transformed into the bustling new coal mining town of Somerdale.

“Although about only two months since its cornerstone was laid, it now contains 24 houses, one storeroom and one hotel nearly under roof,” a correspondent for the Tuscarawas Advocate newspaper of New Philadelphia reported on Nov. 25, 1886. “The mines are progressing briskly, the grading being nearly completed. Soon, the coal will roll down the valley to the W. & L.E. Railroad and out to the world.”

In 1886, the J.H. Somers Coal Co. of Cleveland purchased extensive property along Conotton Creek between Zoarville and New Cumberland to utilize the rich coal veins underneath the land. It opened two mines, the Somerdale No. 1 and Somerdale No. 2, which, by 1887, employed 220 men.

“All the plant is furnished with the latest improvements for the successful operation of these mines,” Ohio’s chief inspector for mines wrote in 1887. “The company has built quite a town here, and, I must say, they have the best company houses built in eastern Ohio.”

Somerdale got an added boost when David Barnheisel of Cleveland opened the Barnheisel Mine in 1887, though the property was in his wife’s name.

With plenty of jobs available, the town quickly grew. In just a couple of years, Somerdale had three stores, a hardware store, an opera house, a Congregational church, a school and its own physician, Dr. C.F. Hutten, who moved there from Hillsboro, Ohio. The Somerdale post office opened May 23, 1887, with Edmond C. Ramey as the first postmaster.

And, like many mining towns in Tuscarawas County, it had a fine baseball team.

“Our baseball club is among the best in the county,” the Somerdale correspondent for the Advocate boasted on June 26, 1890. “Mr. H. Williams rented them ground to play upon. Mr. Williams requested that they be as orderly as possible and by all means do no more swearing than was actually necessary in order to make the game interesting, to which the boys readily agreed.”

Somerdale also had its share of saloons.

“This town is cursed with two of those damnable curses, of all others devil sent, damning sinks of iniquity, saloons,” an Advocate correspondent wrote in August 1887. “Great God in mercy deliver us from them; open the eyes of the voters so that they may shake off the monster and save the young men of our country.”

While the Somers mines prospered, the Barnheisel mine experienced difficulties.

In 1888, it became mixed up in legal wrangling over the estate of David Barnheisel’s wife, Martha. Before her death, she was facing financial difficulties and assigned her property to a man named James Lawrence. That property included the Barnheisel Mine, which the Ohio Democrat newspaper of New Philadelphia described as “one of the richest in the Tuscarawas Valley, valued at $60,000.”

Page 2 of 2 -
David Barnheisel purchased the mine at the assignee’s sale. But after Martha’s death, the trustee of her estate discovered that David had used his wife’s money to make the purchase. The trustee instituted legal action on the grounds that the sale was fraudulent.

Because of the lawsuit, work at the mine was suspended. In 1890, the Somers Coal Co. purchased it and resumed operations on May 1 of that year. The 1891 report of the state inspector of mines noted that the coal from the Barnheisel Mine was superior in quality to that of the other Somers mines.

Somerdale remained a significant mining town until its coal mines closed in the years just before World War I.

Jon Baker is a reporter for The Times-Reporter. He can be reached via email at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.